


Finding your way home

by IndigoDream



Series: Geralt Fluff Week 2020 [6]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Day 6: Fighting, Established Relationship, Geralt Fluff Week (The Witcher), M/M, Mention of blood, Monsters, Rings, The Skellige Isles (The Witcher), Witcher Contracts, light injury, the author has been playing too much tw3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25754818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoDream/pseuds/IndigoDream
Summary: “I believe you took my boat,” he announces tiredly as he enters the circle of light, and men immediately seizes up their swords and axes, standing up. “I’m not looking for a fight, just my boat.”or: Geralt was supposed to be taking a vacation with Jaskier on Ard Skellig. He should not be taking contracts and fighting bandits. There are some good surprises that come out of that though.---Written for Geralt Fluff Week Day 6: Fighting/Contracts/Monsters
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geralt Fluff Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859671
Comments: 11
Kudos: 100
Collections: Geralt Fluff Week 2020





	Finding your way home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello ~ 
> 
> This fic should be subtitled : The author has been playing too much of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the author has an unending love for Skellige. 
> 
> Seriously, listen to the Skellige music if you haven't it's absolutely gorgeous! 
> 
> Ok I'll stop advertising for fictional isles, and let you enjoy this fic!

The contract is easy enough, on paper at least. A pack of _Muire D’yaeblen_ , drowners as the Skelliger calls them, and maybe a water hag. It isn’t easy navigating the boat through the waters that surrounded Ard Skellig, but he manages, barely getting any of the water on himself. 

The monsters are sloppy, leaving bits of people floating all over the water, leading directly to their lair. Geralt is quietly glad that he isn’t swimming in there. It would for sure get caught in his hair, and then he would have to wash human _and_ monster guts off himself, and he might be a witcher, but even he had limits. Human guts, when unnecessary, are way past that limit. Plus, Jaskier would surely make a comment or three about his innards-covered witcher again, and since they are supposedly on vacation, he would rather not annoy the bard. 

Entering the lair is easy, and he takes Cat to keep his human sight from being a problem. As always, the taste is unpleasant, but he doesn’t balk away from it as he had when he was younger. He finds the drowners easily enough, their stench heavy through the air, and it doesn’t take long for them to die from his blade.

After all, the monsters are disorganized and messy, despite their strength and number. There is also a water hag, which makes Geralt groan to himself. Great, now it won’t be just monster blood, but also mud. Fantastic. He is going to get an earful from Jaskier, and he isn’t looking forward to it. 

Ten drowners and a water hag aren’t a match for him however, and they are soon dead. He comes out of the lair with mud sticking to his hair and clothes, only to find that his boat has disappeared. Geralt has half a mind of just walking back to the town, but he had borrowed the boat from a small fisherman, and he knows guilt would eat him alive if he didn’t try and bring it back at the very least. That, and he would have to pay for it. 

He’s sure he had tied the boat properly, so there must have been bandits around who have taken it. It isn’t such a bad idea, to establish camp above a drowner’s lair. As long as you stayed out of reach and didn’t mind the smell of blood, bile and rotten flesh, or the sound of screeching monsters, your camp stays relatively safe from other bandits. And if there is any dissent amongst your crew, you can just toss them to the monsters underneath. Geralt half wishes he had known about this _before_ going into the lair. Coulda used human bait for the drowners. 

He sets off to find his boat, holding against him one of the monsters’ head as proof that he has indeed completed the contract. He might haggle some once he made it back, since there hadn’t been any notice for the water hag, and that one had _definitely_ been there, as the wound on his arm and the mud caked to his neckline prove. 

Finding the bandits’ camp, and thus the boat, isn’t too hard to do. They are lucky drowners aren’t quite smart, because any human would have discovered the mess of tracks that they left all over the hiking trail. As he climbs, he keeps a look out for his boat, but he doesn’t see the white sails on his side of the cliff. He is getting pretty certain that they either dismantled it, but then it would have been quite quick work, since he is sure that he wasn’t in the cave longer than an hour at most, or they navigated it to the other side of the cliff or into the open sea. He breathes a swear as he realizes that finding the camp might not be of any use if they are already sailing with it. 

There are voices when he arrives up the cliff, and he takes an instant to breathe deeply and ready himself for the fight, before he lifts himself the last few meters. The sun is shining over the isle, and the men in the camp are laughing, none of them standing guard; they must be quite certain that no one would attack them from this side of the cliff, and that no one would discover their hideout. Geralt is willing to admit he wouldn’t have looked for it, had there not been the problem of his boat and the drowners underneath. 

He grips his steel sword and walks to the camp, his steps silent on the luscious herb. He had been right that the scent of the drowners’ lair is putrid, even high up like the settlement is. 

“I believe you took my boat,” he announces tiredly as he enters the circle of light, and men immediately seizes up their swords and axes, standing up. “I’m not looking for a fight, just my boat.” 

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to care that he just wants his boat. He sighs deeply and avoids the first bolt of crossbow thrown his way. He tries his best not to kill them, but when those he sends to the ground get back up and attack him again, he has no other choice. He steps aside, slashes, hits with the pummel of his sword; this is a well practiced dance for him, and a little less for his opponents. 

The bodies fall to the ground, and he sighs. He should probably bury them, but honestly, he can’t quite bring himself to do so. He’ll tell the alderman of Kaer Trolde, and if he doesn’t do anything, let the ghouls come. It’ll mean more money for Geralt. 

He does a cursory look through the camp and grins a bit to himself as he finds some ingredients he could use for potions, as well as some light items he could sell. He happens a small chest with a few interesting items: jewelries that definitely did not belong to those men. Skelliger are rough people known for attacking the Continent, and there is more than a small chance that they plundered a ship and found those. There is no sign of wear on them, nothing that marks that they belonged to anyone. Probably were planning on selling them again as soon as they could. Geralt grabs the chest and looks over the cliff, trying to find the boat he had borrowed to come. He lets out a slightly relieved sigh when he sees sit docked amongst a few other small ships. 

The sail back to Kaer Trolde is more peaceful than the first sail had been, and he half-considers using Aard to get back faster. Ultimately, he decides against it. That would risk breaking the mast and he needs it to keep going. He needs it to get back to Jaskier, and to their vacation. 

This had been Geralt’s idea, the whole coming to Ard Skelling idea. He had wanted to show the isle’s beauty to Jaskier, share with the man he loves one of the most beautiful land on their bout of the known world. Geralt was well known and friendly with the An Craite, and so he was always a well received guest, which could be counted as rare in the pirating isles. After all, King Bran appreciates his company well enough, despite Geralt’s stunt at Cintra which had led to his brother’s wedding to Queen Calanthe, and thus to the alliance of Skellige and Cintra. Bran had laughed it off. 

“Better my brother marry the Lioness, than Crach her daughter, if she’s in love with a hedgehog.” After a hearty slap on Geralt’s back that had nearly sent the witcher tumbling forward, the King of Skellige had walked away to other matters. 

“At least Skelligers respect matters of the heart,” Jaskier had murmured next to Geralt, his hand slipping into Geralt’s and intertwining their fingers. “I did not think it possible that we could be openly together at a royal court, and yet…” 

“Here we are?” Geralt had looked at him with a smile, and the bard had jostled his shoulder lightly, the happiness in his eyes betraying him. 

It had been their first evening on Ard Skellig. Now, five days later, Geralt is coming back from this thrice-damned contract and he intends to stay in bed for as long as Jaskier will let him, and then enjoy the next few days of his vacations, until they both get bored and decide to go back to the Continent, to the Path. Though, they could definitely take a few months on the Skellige isles, finding the monsters there and hunting them… Might be a good amount of coin to be made here. He’ll have to see with the bard. 

He is still thinking about the next few months, his mind having wandered to the winter and taking Jaskier to Kaer Morhen, when he arrives to Kaer Trolde’s harbour. He ties the boat back where he had borrowed it, and nods at the man who lended it to him, who simply nods back. Making his way to the man who contracted him is easy enough, haggling for a higher price isn’t. They settle on an added twenty percent, and Geralt wishes Jaskier had been there. He has found that the bard is much more convincing that Geralt is, although that might not work with Skelligers. 

He is halfway to the Citadel, where King Bran gave them a room, despite their protests that they could pay a room at one of the local inns, when he remembers the small chest he is carrying. He takes a detour to the Citadel’s blacksmith, haggles once again for a price, and leaves with his coin pouch much heavier than it had been earlier. Only one small piece of jewelry remains, hidden within his pocket, and he can’t wait to show it to Jaskier. He hopes he will like it. 

After some small talk with Crach, asking him about how he finds being a Jarl, he manages to escape to his chamber. He hasn’t pushed the door open that he can hear the strings of the elven lute Jaskier carries everywhere being pulled and played. He doesn’t recognize the melody; it must be a new song that Jaskier is working on. 

“I’m back,” he says as he opens the door open, and immediately the lute is put down. He only has to wait a second or so before arms are thrown around his neck and he is being embraced within an inch of his life. 

“You were gone forever!” Jaskier complains and then withdraws, sighing. “And you have monster guts in your hair. Again. And you are wounded!” 

“Water hag,” Geralt shrugs. “Nothing big. Brought you something back.” 

Jaskier’s nose scrunches up a bit. “Love, if you bring me back something from a drowner’s lair, I have to tell you-“ 

Geralt takes out the matching rings he found and smiles as Jaskier stops through his sentence. “Here, I found you those.” 

There is a moment where Jaskier doesn’t say anything, a rare occurrence in the ten years they have known each other, and even rarer in the four years they have been dating. He simply looks at the rings, his eyes filling with wonder and delight. It’s easy to read Jaskier’s expression from this close: his mouth hangs ever so slightly open, his eyes are keep drifting from the rings to Geralt’s face, and halfway between them, his hands shake lightly.

“If this is a proposal, Geralt, I swear I’m-“ 

“It’s not,” Geralt assures him and caresses his cheek. “This is a promise. I’m yours, always, and one day, I’ll have the courage to make it official, I swear that to you. For now though, this is simply a promise. I’ll love you as long as you want me to and… I want you to be in my life. For as long as you want to be.”

“As long as I- You gigantic oaf, I adore you!” Jaskier throws his arms around him and hugs him tightly. “You are the love of my life, how many times do I need to tell you? There is nothing that I love more than you. You are my muse, my reason to keep roaming the world, my everything. I want to be with you until we utter our dying breaths.” 

Geralt tries not to choke up, but it’s hard when the poet is caressing his cheek and saying those words so delicately. It’s hard to not feel like the world is there for him, when his world is staring at him. He moves forward, captures Jaskier’s lips in his own. 

“I love you.” 

Jaskier hums and slips one of the rings on his finger, admiring it. “It’s beautiful.” 

Indeed, the ring is beautiful. The silver is well polished, and there is a fine line of yellow diamonds set within, expertly put in place. Geralt’s ring is much the same, but rather than sapphires, the stones that have been chosen are small sapphires. At least, that’s what the blacksmith had assured Geralt when he had asked the man his expertise on them. 

“I’m no jeweller,” the man had said, picking up the rings. “But those sure looks like diamonds, and that’s sapphire for sure! Nothing shines like the two of them.” 

“I thought you’d want the sapphire,” Geralt remarks with some surprise. “It matches your eyes better.” 

“But I don’t care about my eyes.” Jaskier smiles and slips the second ring on Geralt’s finger, using a quick spell to make it the right size. “What I care is having a piece of you with me, always.” 

The very thought makes Geralt blush slightly, a rare occasion. He can feel his ears warming up, and he knows by the delighted glint in Jaskier’s eyes that his cheeks are reddening as well. 

“Good then,” he manages to grunt out, and kisses Jaskier again. “Now stop being so damn poetic, I can’t think when you are like that.” 

Jaskier laughs brightly and wraps his arms around Geralt’s neck. “Why would you want to think, my love? You are in my arms, there is no need to be wondering and thinking.” 

“What if I want to be thinking about you?” Geralt asks, brushing his lips against Jaskier’s cheek. “Would you not allow me that?” 

Jaskier hums and pecks his lips. “I might.” Then he looks down slightly, perhaps to look at Geralt’s hand and glimpse the ring again, and his eyes catch on the small wound. “Oh gods, you’re still bleeding! I have to clean that up.” 

Geralt chuckles but lets himself be lead away, to the small bath chamber that has been dedicated to them. Anywhere with Jaskier is home. 

**Author's Note:**

> :D Skellige and the lore of the an Craite clan is my new favorite thing so it might pop up again lmao
> 
> If you enjoyed the fic, don't hesitate to leave kudos or a comment! Or you can come chat me up on tumblr (@saltytransidiot)!


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